Monthly Archives: February 2010

It’s been a few days since my surgery on Tuesday to fix my broken wrist and stabilize it using a titanium plate. Having been through a recovery process that’s quite a bit more intense than I was expecting, I am now inclined to agree with my surgeon, who told me beforehand that, “there’s no such thing as a minor surgery.”

But enough whining. I’m mainly posting so I can share the photo below, which I hope brings a smile to your face. The hospital gave me this amazing contraption to keep my arm from moving in ways it shouldn’t (which is more helpful than you would imagine). I think it makes me look like a cross between a Green Bay Packers fan and a SpongeBob enthusiast (I’m neither).

I’m happy to announce that after two horrible, painful, doped-up days following surgery on Tuesday to fix my broken wrist, I’m officially back in the world of the living.  I ended up spending Tuesday night in the hospital (apparently, sobbing in pain and begging for morphine when your nerve block suddenly wears off about an hour after surgery, leaving you with absolutely nothing to ease the pain of someone cutting into you, is not the best tactic to use when you’re looking to go home), and slept through most of the day Wednesday once I got back home. Today, though I’m not exactly feeling productive and perky, I feel human again, and actually able to look forward — like, beyond my next dose of pain killer.

It likely won’t surprise you to hear that on my way into surgery, I was asking my doctor how realistic my various race goals were. I tempered my questions with the caveat “I know this seems trivial right now, but…” Then, I asked how soon I might be able to run, swim, hop on the stationary bike, do a single set of lunges or squats, etc.

Here’s the amazing thing: My doctor is a runner!  She told me as soon as the wound heals and I get into a cast, I should be able to do a little bit of running, though I could tell she didn’t want to get my hopes up about when that might happen. “The first month might be kind of rough, activity-wise,” she said, wincing sympathetically. But like a true runner, she also didn’t want to dampen my hopes that I might realistically be able to run the Blue Ridge Parkway Half-Marathon on April 24, or compete in the  1-Mile Chesapeake Bay Swim on June 13, and she told me to try to view recovery on a week-by-week basis.

This week, my goal is to let my body rest to let some good healing begin, and to make sure I don’t sweat at all to avoid the risk of infection.  I am, however, cleared to do whatever short bursts of activity I feel up for, provided I don’t get sweaty, and I actually did a set of single-leg squats today just to feel my muscles move again (I’ll need a nap later as a result, I’m sure).

Looking a little farther ahead, I’m also considering what I think are some pretty reasonable goals for returning to activity. I could be done with all manner of splints and casts within six weeks, which brings me to the first week of April. Ideally, I’d like to run the half marathon at the end of April (nine weeks away), and do the swim on June 13 (a whopping 16 weeks away). If that proves to be overly optimistic, my plan is to train for a fast 5K or 10K sometime in the late spring, and to be back in fighting/running shape for the Annapolis 10-miler in August.  For swimming, the backup plan involves choosing one of the many great-looking open water swims closer to the end of the summer. These should give me some exciting goals to work toward, while letting me be flexible enough to roll with the punches if my body needs a little extra time to recover.

I have one other major goal that will serve as an incentive to get strong again: Steve and I will spend next season as ski-patrol candidates at Whitetail! This is a major lifetime goal for both of us, and a great way to give back to a sport that’s given us so much.Twice-weekly outdoor emergency care classes will start in August (on Tuesday and Thursday nights, sadly, necessitating a break from our running group at Pacers Silver Spring) and continue through the fall, with on-the-hill training every Saturday once the resort is open. That gives me plenty of time to get back into top skiing shape (though don’t expect to see me snowboarding up there again anytime soon).

In other news: I wrote this post using this nifty software, MacSpeech, which converts my speech into text. There is a bit of a learning curve in using it, so please forgive any typos. My hope is that it will eventually allow me to post here more frequently.  But just like the rest of my recovery, I am taking things slow, and being as easy on myself as humanly possible, so please excuse my infrequent posts here and my infrequent presence on Twitter and other social media.

First, let me share the news that will shape the next two weeks of my life: I am scheduled to get surgery tomorrow to fix my broken wrist. My doctors last Friday said the bones aren’t setting the way they’d hoped, and said if they stuck my arm in a cast and let it heal, my right wrist would likely be a little unstable forever.

Instead, I will come out of surgery with a sort of bionic wrist reinforced with a metal plate and some pins and/or screws. This ensures I won’t be worrying about my wrist every time I fall skiing (notice I did not say snowboarding, as chances are slim I’ll be giving up a ski day for *that* hooey again) or every time I hoist a heavy pack onto my back while camping. Friends who have had similar surgeries tell me this also means I’ll get to be more active sooner than if I’d just gotten a cast.

I will be laid up for at least one week, probably more like two. Until the wound heals, I am absolutely not allowed to sweat, unless I care to risk infection (I don’t). Given how I felt this week, with my poor broken wrist in a splint, I’m not worried about jumping the gun. The idea of running isn’t even remotely appealing when you can feel your broken bone shift a bit when you’re walking across the room.

I’m getting the surgery done at National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda–probably the best place in the world to have an extremity put back together. It’s outpatient surgery, so I should be home and resting comfortably in time for LOST Tuesday night.

It didn’t take me long to start whipping out the marathon metaphors, and the more I think about it, the more it strikes me that, when you train for something as difficult as a marathon, you’re really just practicing for how you’ll get though greater, real-life difficulties. Here’s how recovering from surgery is a little like training for a marathon:

• It helps to break down the big challenge into manageable chunks. I caught myself thinking about how uncomfortable my cast would get after six weeks. Then, I realized that was like thinking about how rough you’ll feel at mile 20 when you’ve just crossed the starting line. I’m taking this recovery one day and one week at a time, and vowing to take it slow if that’s what my body needs. Again, judging by how rough my first few stationary-bike rides felt on the arm this week, I’m not going to be in any hurry to return to normal activity.
• I’m amassing my support squad. You know how you learn pretty quickly during marathon training which friends will offer to ride a bike beside you on long runs and which ones will say thing like, “Did you hear about that guy in Chicago who died during the marathon?” Or: “Aren’t you worried you’re going to hit the wall?” I’m surrounding myself with my positive, low-drama friends and family members and mentally blocking out negative ones.
• I’m getting a little cheesy. I have a whole new set of motivational quotes taped to the fridge, my bathroom mirror, my nightstand. Luckily, I’d gotten comfortable with this flagrant show of earnesty and sincerity during marathon training, so it doesn’t feel *so* cheesy now. If you have a good quote relating to mental toughness, pass it along. Bonus points if the quote is from an injured athlete!
• I’m not taking myself too seriously. Runners move pretty quickly from abject disappointment over a bad race to laughter and self-deprecation about it. The more I tell the story of the injury, the more I laugh about things that happened, such as the trifecta of things you don’t want to hear in the ER (all of which I heard): “Wow! Can I take a picture of that?” “Do you usually bleed a lot?” “I’m impressed. And I’ve been an ER nurse for 35 years, so it takes a lot to impress me.”
• I’m going to view food as medicine–except rather than focusing on muscle recovery after a long run, I’m looking at bone and wound healing. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons lays out the basics here, saying that “protein, calcium, vitamin C, and vitamin D are absolutely necessary to heal broken bones.” According to AARP Magazine, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have reported that a higher intake of omega-3s additionally appears to preserve bone density. And the Cleveland Clinic says the body needs increased amounts of calories, protein, vitamins A and C, and zinc during the healing process. It recommends consuming at least 1 serving a day dark green, leafy vegetables, orange or yellow vegetables and orange fruits for vitamin A; and at least 1 serving a day of citrus fruits, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers or spinach for vitamin C–which sort of sounds like what I eat already. Today’s Dietitian also gives some good advice about wound healing, too.

I’m still aiming to post here about once a week. I’ve finally ordered Mac-compatible speech-to-text software to make typing easier, but for now, I’m hunting and pecking.

Send healing thoughts my way tomorrow!

*Editor’s note: My posts may be less frequent during the next four to six weeks because of the circumstances described below. At least for now, I’m planing to post once a week, on Monday. My comments on others’ blogs will likely be sparse, too. But stick with me: I’m doing my best hunting and pecking with limited use of my right arm for now, and will be back to posts every weekday as soon as I can.*

On the two-hour drive from Whitetail to the emergency room at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda on Friday afternoon, I relied on a few key distractions to keep my mind off the knowledge that my lower right arm was purple, throbbing, and shaped like an “S” after a gnarly fall while learning to snowboard.

Snowboarding was fun, until it wasn’t.

I took deep yoga breaths while repeating the mantra, “Choose peace” as I felt bone grind on bone. I closed my eyes and hummed Bob Marley songs while I tried to ignore the bumps in the road (who knew there were so many bridges on I-70?). And I focused an NPR interview with Willie Mays on NPR in which the baseball great talked about how he chose not to hold onto anger about the way he was treated during his rookie year, when he was one of only a few black professional baseball players in the league. “I go forward all the time,” he said. “I never back up.”

I’m choosing to make Mays’ quote my mantra for the next four to six weeks, which I’m told will be my recovery time with or without surgery (I find out about the surgery at my follow-up appointment at 8 a.m. Friday). Focusing on those thoughts kept me from crying even a little bit from the moment I fell until we pulled into the hospital, where my misshapen wrist became the story of the night. It looked so nasty, the doctor who set it asked if he could take a picture (we have photos, too, but Steve says they’re too gross to post for general audiences). And they’re already helping me see this injury, a distal radius fracture, the way I want to: with positivity and grace, not self-pity and regret. Here’s how I’m choosing to approach the next four to six weeks:

• As a time to retrain my brain. Our neurons fire some circuits out of habit, and right now, my neurons have an awful lot of bad habits. If I “force the positive,” as Deena Kastor puts it, I can establish healthier thought patterns to replace them. I can come out of this mentally tougher than I already am by refusing to indulge self-pity, worst-case scenarios, whining.

• As a time to heal. I’ll be in occupational therapy as soon as they’ll take me. But in a larger sense, I’ve gotta believe my hip and ankle will benefit from some real time off—like, stationary-bike time off, not just reduced mileage. I will know more about when I can run and swim again after my doctor appointment on Friday, but for now, I’m just going to give my body all the rest it needs.
• As a time to work on my weaknesses. I may not be able to manage Turkish getups for quite a while. But single-leg squats, monster walks with resistance bands and the rest of my hip-strengthening workout are a different story.

My motivation board was decorated with photos of Stowe, where we were planning to ski in March (still might go; I clearly won’t ski); the Bay Bridge Swim in June (should be OK, but who knows?); and generic running-themed stuff. I’ve added a photo of Lindsey Vonn, the hardworking, gutsy skier whose Olympic dreams are in jeopardy after a shin injury; Deena Kastor, whose own Olympic marathon in Beijing was shattered when she had to drop out because of a stress fracture; and Willie Mays, who’s reminding me to keep looking forward.

One thing I will look back on: my amazing ski week last week. Steve and I volunteered to pick up extra shifts with the Mountain Safety Team as soon as we heard record snowfall in the forecasts, and actually got stuck at Whitetail overnight during the blizzard on Wednesday. My ski season may have ended early, but it certainly ended on a high note!

So I broke my arm while trying out snowboarding on Friday afternoon. More details on that later. For now, I’m hunting and pecking, and wanted to share photos from what may have been the best ski day ever at Whitetail on Wednesday. It stinks that my season ended sooner than I wanted, but it’s pretty cool that I got to end on a day like this.

Really, how can you follow up on a day like this?

Steve and I jokingly refer to my fledgling freelance-writing business as “Amy Incorporated.” I serve as both the CEO and janitor of this company, and I took advantage of my CEO post today to make a new company policy: No work on powder days!

Steve and I drove up to Whitetail late this afternoon, as the third major snowstorm to hit the DC area this winter started brewing. We plan to wake up early to ski in yet another powder day tomorrow morning. I will resume my regular posting schedule when I return.

I'll be back when I'm done skiing in this.

It’s so obvious, the idea that we can get more enjoyment out of working out remembering that, as this month’s Runner’s World puts it, “Athletic movement provides pleasure. Enjoy it.”

We do things like swim and run because they feel good—obvious stuff, right? Still, I realized in the middle of my warmup for a 4,500-meter swim last Friday that it had been a long time since I actually paid attention to how good it felt to swim.

So I tuned in to how it felt to take each stroke: to catch the water with my cupped hand, to propel myself forward with the specific hydrodynamic motion that’s second-nature to me after years of practice, and to follow through until my hand practically grazes my thigh.

I’ve mostly been swimming freestyle with a pull buoy to rest my ankle, and I noticed for the first time that doing so engages your core in new and interesting ways—something I’m sure I would have realized sooner had I made a point to be mentally present during my workouts.

I also noticed something I had been doubting recently: I DO love to swim. Though running is my first love, really tuning in to the joy of motion is motivating me to jump in the pool again this week—and to be more present and aware of what I’m doing once I jump in.

Saturday, one of my happiest days in recent memory, started with 45 minutes of manual labor.

Steve and I left Silver Spring for our regular weekend shift volunteering for Whitetail’s Mountain Safety Team around noon on Friday, just as the first flakes of what turned into a record-breaking snowstorm started to fall. We skied all night Friday, when snow fell so quickly and heavily, we watched our tracks from our last run disappear on the lift ride back up to the top.

On Saturday, our opening shift required us to shovel out the lifts so they were safe for guests to actually get on. The ski patrollers said they needed a couple of safety teamers to ride over to the lift that services Whitetail’s expert terrain on a snowmobile. Steve and I practically leaped out of our seats to volunteer. After a snowmobile ride that rivaled the coolest roller coasters I’ve ever been on, the patroller and I spent about 45 minutes shoveling at the top of the lift as Steve worked on the bottom. Once it was clear, we were both dripping with sweat, exhausted from the effort.

The lift we shoveled out to earn our turns.

“Want to take a run?” the patroller said, smiling. I thought you’d never ask!

That first turn on two feet of untouched powder will go down in my mental record book as one of the most joyful moments of my life. Feeling my skis float on top of the snow felt like exhaling: a soft, sweet release I could sink into. My quads were working overtime, but not in the usual way: It felt like doing lunges on a pile of feathers, hard and soft all at once. It was the first of dozens of runs that would leave me aching by the end of the day, not to mention this morning. Every muscle in my body is literally sore to the touch.

Grinning, because the snow is STILL falling!

I’m highly motivated to keep up my workout routine by having something to train for: a marathon or an open-water swim I need to be in good shape to complete. Last weekend’s blizzard reminded me that I also want to be in shape for the unexpected. I want to be able to plan an impromptu backpacking trip, or to keep skiing until the powder is gone, not until my muscles run out of juice.

Me skiing down our favorite cruiser run on Sunday morning, when the powder magically turned into soft corduroy.

Next time I’m doing single-leg squats, or Turkish getups, I’ll be motivated by the knowledge that strength-training now helps me be ready for anything, from shoveling to powder skiing.

What’s motivating you this week?

You had me at Alberto Salazar.

By “you,” I mean Running Times, which featured a great spread about cross-training a few months ago that included this great nugget about swimming: Alberto Salazar qualified for the Olympic team in the 10,000m in 1980 after taking a two-month hiatus from running, relying on swimming as his primary activity following an IT band injury.

Since I’ve been swimming a lot to let my grumpy ankle rest, I’ve been thinking a lot about how swimming translates to running. Running Times lays out lots of great general information, but these are some of my personal impressions.

First and most importantly, it’s the best non-running cardio workout I’ve found. During sprint sets, when my heart feels like it’s about to jump out of my chest, I can’t help but think about running intervals on a track, or running hills.

I’ve also noticed the pool is a safe place to test stomach-friendly pre-workout foods, one of my major goals over the past few months. Swimming seems far more forgiving than running, stomach-wise, so I get to see which foods work without fearing a serious penalty if a food doesn’t work so well. Two successes: I swam a potentially vomit-inducing workout just an hour after a lunch of quinoa and various kinds of summer squash (I know. It’s not summer. Don’t tell Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver.), and it worked out just fine.

Also, inspired by Mark Bittman’s awesome-looking breakfast couscous recipe, I relied on a banana-couscous combo to fuel what turned out to be a mid-morning mega swim of 4,500 meters. I combined whole-wheat couscous, flaxseed, a mashed banana, a little skim milk and a few slivered almonds, then added a touch of Truvia and vanilla:

The delicious and stomach-friendly result.

The workout (all freestyle with a pull buoy):

• 2,000, increasing intensity each 500
• Pyramid set, on :15 rest: 1×50 > 1×100 > 1×150 > 1×200 > 1×250 > 1×300 > 1×250 > 1×200 > 1×150 > 1×100 > 1×50 (1,800 total)
• 4×25 sprint freestyle, on :10 rest, followed immediately by 4×25 no-breath freestyle
• 300 cool-down

I actually thought a lot about running while I swam, especially during the short, fast intervals. I imagined myself pushing it through the last, painful mile of a 5K, or up the last steep hill during one of my group runs with Pacers Silver Spring. I was so inspired and motivated, I added another one of these to the end: 4×25 sprint freestyle, on :10 rest, followed immediately by 4×25 no-breath freestyle. I can confirm, in case you were wondering, that the “no breath” part is considerably harder swimming meters than yards.

Next up: Ski weekend at Whitetail! Let it snow!

Even now that I’m back in the routine of swimming regularly, having spent some time getting my head in the right place about tackling the workouts, there’s one excuse I can’t seem to beat: It’s cold, and my usual remedy for cold is not jumping in a lukewarm pool.

My first swim back was especially rough—it took me a full 100 meters to shake the chill, and maybe a 500 before I forgot about being cold altogether.

I realize this is a silly thing to get hung up on. But I’m not the only one. Dara Torres even has a chapter in her book about how, at every level of swimming, you’re likely to find swimmers procrastinating on the pool deck before practice, looking for ways to postpone actually jumping in.

Since it’s not going to warm up anytime soon, and since I’m unlikely to get a good swimming workout without actually jumping in, I figured it was time to find a fix I could control (I’m still working on the weather).

1. Last winter, I always lifted for about 30 minutes before my swim workouts. That ensured I’d be hot, sweaty and in need of a cool-down by the time I had to jump in the pool, no matter how cold it was outside. I’m thinking the extra 30 minutes would be worth the added comfort this winter, too.

2. An even quicker and easier pre-swim warm-up: a cup of tea in a to-go mug for the drive to the pool.

3. I can visualize how good I’ll feel in a hot, post-swim shower. I’ve used this kind of mental imagery during races, imagining how good I’ll feel once I’m relaxing in an ice bath post-run. Consider this a warm, fuzzy twist on the visualization exercise.

4. I can up the ante for my post-swim reward, as I did yesterday: with what was quite possibly the most delicious pot of white chicken chili ever made.

I promised myself a hot bowl of chicken chili post-swim.

Here’s the recipe, which is based on an old Cooking Light recipe, but has since morphed into my own creation:

• Cut two chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces (the smaller, the better).
• Saute in a large pot with cooking spray and about two cloves of minced garlic.
• Add two (small) cans of diced green chili peppers (I actually use four, but not everyone likes it so hot!); two cans of chicken broth; coriander, onion powder, cumin and oregano to taste; and two cans of cannellini beans.
• For a thicker, heartier broth, puree another half a can of cannellini beans, then mix the pureed beans into the chili. Delicious.
• Simmer for as long as you can stand it. Garnish with cilantro, cheddar cheese, hot sauce and/or sour cream (I like all of the above).

We plan to bring the leftovers with us skiing this weekend. That’s right – I got the OK to ski at physical therapy yesterday! Let it snow, D.C.!